


Good Morning

by orphan_account



Category: Fallen Hero Series - Malin Rydén, Fallen Hero: Rebirth (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Reveal, Retribution Spoilers, mature bc theyre nakey but not sexually just chilling, mentioned lady argent/julia ortega/f!sidestep but its not a focus, not angsty sidestep is just Worried
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-19
Updated: 2019-09-19
Packaged: 2020-11-02 09:11:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20695460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: We can tell Herald, Doctor Mortum, and Argent who we are. So, here’s my Sidestep, Yvette, making the happiest mistake of her life.





	Good Morning

“I thought you weren’t staying the night?”

Yvette tenses in her arms, nails digging into Julia’s back. The sleepy mumble in itself was soft, one of the better ways to wake up.

It’s the words that make it feel like a nightmare.

She can feel the sunlight on her back and it's enough to burn. She was always gone before sunrise, despite how many jokes it generated about Yvette being a vampire, but lately she’s been slipping.

“Don’t look at me,” she bites out, too harsh for the hazy morning. She slipped and now she’s falling right over the edge.

“Okay,” Julia agrees. Of course she does. Yvette doesn’t need to be a telepath to know that Julia trusts her, pulling her closer in her arms instead of pushing away at such a request. “I’ll close my eyes, but we’re talking about this.”

“How long have you been practicing that line?” She brushes it off, trying to ignore her hammering heart as Julia’s hold on her starts to feel less like an embrace and more like a trap.

“A while,” She admits, tucking her nose into her hair and breathing in. “I didn’t want you to run.”

“I don’t think I can.” It’s too quiet coming from Yvette’s mouth. Her words should be sharp, tough enough to leave blisters on the inside of her cheeks, but she can’t seem to find them. Just these too sugary sentences, melting over her tongue. If Julia were to kiss her, it may actually taste sweet instead of the bitterness of coffee.

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Won’t.”

Julia relaxes at the hesitant admittance, brushing her hands down Yvette’s back in a caress. It borders on too reverent. Light fingers, tracing raised marks, with all the pressure of a cloud. Careful not to leave a mark.

“I know you have your secrets,” she starts slowly, running one of her nails down Yvette’s spine to make her shiver. “I just want you to know you can trust me. With anything.”

“I can’t read you.” Yvette sighs, letting her eyelids slide shut. What would she watch, anyways? She can only see Ortega’s back if she craned her neck, tangled together as they were. “That makes it impossible.”

“You’ll have to have faith I’m telling the truth. Just like everyone else.” There’s a heavy silence that rides on her proclamation. Yvette knows its unfair. Julia gives her so much and only gets scraps in return. At first, she told herself it was because she had nothing to give, but now her heart is full with all the words she wants to say and cages them inside other, less frightful phrases.

Inside her head, its safe. If there’s one good thing about Ortega being epiletic, its this. Yvette can drop her shields and Julia will never know. She can scream at her inside her brain and she’ll never hear the dozens of ‘I love you’s that pop up when Julia smiles or hands her coffee.

“If you… If you hate me, I can’t make you forget.” It’s too early to tell her. She won’t submit to the promise of love as long as there’s the blocky lines of her tattoos between them. “You could hurt me.”

“I won’t.” Is that a joke? That Julia, her proud, shining hero, would never hurt her. As if she hadn’t kicked, thrown, and tried to break her.

“I can’t say the same.” Yvette grits out. Julia looked too fragile in that hospital bed. Even if she didn’t dare knock her out, she still put her there.

“You won’t.” Julia says with such fierce determination that Yvette has to bite back a laugh. “Yvette, you wouldn’t. I know you don’t think of yourself as a hero–“

“I’m not, I never was.” The disdain in her voice drips off her lips and it stings. If she was a hero, she would have stopped Anathema’s hands from ever touching her face. She would have taken control during the Heartbreak incident instead of leaping out the window. She would have joined the Rangers or told everyone she wasn’t dead sometime during those seven years.

She would have told Julia by now, if she was a hero.

“Listen to me,” Julia demands, nails scraping across her shoulder blades with a vengeance. “I know you. You say I don’t, but I know just how you take your coffee and how you blurt out stupid things just to make me laugh. I know you, Yvette, in all the ways that matter.”

“What if it matters to me?” She challenges, squirming in her arms. Julia merely throws a leg over her hips and pulls her closer than Yvette thought possible.

“Then it's the most important thing in the world.”

“You’re pretty full of yourself.”

“I–“ Julia stutters to a stop, but she’s not one to be beaten. “What an honor. I better not be your secret, though.”

“Never.” Yvette kisses her collar bone, an impulse she’s unable to ignore. “I considered it. Hiding how much I… cared for you. It would have been easier.”

“You didn’t?”

“I don’t think I could if I tried.” She smiles against Julia’s soft skin. There are rough scars and mods pressing against her own wrecked body, but it feels better than any smooth skin or linen. More real. “If I liked taking the easy route, I never would have fallen for you.”

Shit, too close, but Julia just keeps talking.

“As if I wasn’t the one who had to push for months just to see your face,” Julia complains, returning the kiss by planting one on her forehead. It makes Yvette giggle, snuggling her face into her neck. Julia’s hair has grown just long enough to tickle her cheeks and Yvette mourns her braid.

This conversation isn’t nearly as scary as she thought it would be.

“That was a big step, don’t mock me.” Yvette grimaces, pulling away. Julia’s hands linger on her shoulders, but there’s enough space between them now for her to see the bar code seared onto her skin and climbing around her chest like a vice. She knows how it looks, even if she wishes she didn’t. She’s always hated the color orange, if only for how it branded every available part of her.

“Babe?” Julia questions, her eyes still squinted shut, but now with her nose scrunching up in confusion.

Yvette smooths out the lines on Julia’s face with tentative arches of her finger pads, propping herself up on one elbow and telling herself she’s getting ready to run. That after this, it will have been the last time Julia’s face fit so well in her hands and her body so perfectly in her bed. She’ll cut and run just like Julia always feared she would.

“Open your eyes.” Yvette tenses, snatching her hands away. Julia squeezes her shoulders and braces herself in return. It's odd, seeing the few moments where she prepares herself like she’s going into battle. Julia Ortega, the first to charge into a fight, hesitating for the first time.

Brown eyes meet brown, Julia’s own deep and entrancing, asking her if she’s sure. Yvette must seem like a statue in comparison, but if Julia wants her stone heart, then she will have it. Yvette was never one to deny her anything.

She feels more than sees the exact moment Julia’s eyes catch on her tattoos.

The fingers on her shoulders turn into claws. Yvette’s breath catches in her throat and every part of her screams to get out now. To leave the room naked and sprint outside until she can’t sense the static of Julia’s brain.

“What are you thinking?”

It’s not what she meant to say, but the longer Julia stares, the louder the white noise gets. Yvette has never hated silence until now.

“That I am so sorry,” Julia chokes out. Her eyes are glossy with tears, but she doesn’t dare blink.

And she is not angry. These are not angry tears. Julia doesn’t lunge or balk or back away.

There is nothing left to do except cry.

“Hey, its okay,” Yvette murmurs cupping her cheeks as the first tears spill out.

“I should be comforting you! The awful things I’ve said, no wonder you hid from me!” A sob rips from her throat and she covers her mouth before she continues. “I didn’t know, I promise, if I did I would have never–I’ve been so stupid.”

“You’re not stupid, just unaware.” It’s hard to sound so reassuring as the guilt and petty revenge well up in equal measures. She wants to hurt. Yvette is a villain for a reason, she wants vengeance. She doesn't like the guilt overcoming Julia's face as much as she thought she would. “I should have told you.”

“I get why you didn’t.” Julia's laugh is borderline hysterical as she starts wiping at her eyes. Her hand catches on Yvette’s own and she takes a moment to pull her hand from her face and interlace their fingers. “All this time I’ve been trying to hold onto you, I just ended up pushing you away.”

“I’m here,” Yvette promises, pressing a kiss to her knuckles. She feels lucky, even too lucky, to have Julia understand and apologize. It makes her all too aware of the other shoe waiting to drop. “I’m sorry, too.”

“You’re forgiven.”

“You don’t even know what for.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Julia asserts, wrapping her other arm around Yvette’s waist and pulling her in. “I forgive you. I’ll always forgive you as long as you ask for it. Probably when you don’t, too.”

“I hurt you, and no, you don’t get to say that I didn’t.” It’s harder this close. She can see the lines worn into Julia’s face, the strands of grey hair close to her temple that she’s likely the cause of. There’s faint freckles under her eyes and she looks so earnest, waiting for Yvette to condemn herself.

It's only fair that Julia chooses the punishment. Taking down the government, getting back at the farm, all her goals seem so small right now. Who was she fooling, thinking she could change things? All that mattered right now was her lover.

She has to call them lovers. Julia’s told her she loves her and Yvette’s lost all reason to deny her own feelings. If Julia hates her for what she's done, that’s very different than hating her for who she is.

“There’s more,” she bites her lip. This could ruin everything and she’s already asked for too much. “I’m, ah, the villain. Heartbreak.”

Julia’s not the kind to go blank to process things. She was always good when rolling with the punches.

She blinks twice. “Okay.”

“That’s it?”

“What? Am I supposed to arrest you for running around in a cape and robbing other villains?”

“I ruined the Gala,” she reminds her, all too aware of Julia’s arm around her waist and the hand still clutched in her own.

“You didn’t hurt a single civilian and the bruising we got wasn’t any worse than from a sparring match.”

“I hurt Herald, he’s still in rehab.”

“You’ve been training him, in and out of costume. Training accidents happen.” Julia doesn't seem entirely convinced of her own words, but she's willing enough to say them that Yvette let's them be.

“Lady Argent kissed me in front of the reporters.” She’s running out of things to be mad at.

“I also recall myself kissing her and the lovely dinner that followed.”

“I was the one that possessed Lady Argent.”

“Right.” Julia’s brow actually furrows at that. “To steal the Nanovores? I should have known you were the only one who could control them. You didn’t do anything weird to her, though?” It’s a question, and a reasonable one at that.

“No, just made her think it was Locus.” Not that it means she's not insulted Julia thinks she would do anything weird to Argent. Julia does them both a favor and smooths out the crinkle of her nose, letting Yvette's glare recede.

“You helped Steel save people,” Julia interjects. “And you’re helping Argent with that prototype she finally told me about.”

“You know about that?”

“She told me Heartbreak was assembling it for her. I felt bad, keeping you out of the loop, but I guess you were already in it?” She pouts. “Did Argent know you were Heartbreak before me?”

“Yes, but she doesn’t know I’m a Regene.” Julia still flinches at that word.

“Oh, well, one up on her I guess.”

“Huh. You know Yasmin?” Julia inclines her head to go on. Yvette already knows the answer. “She’s actually a brain dead coma patient I’ve been possessing.”

At least that gives Julia pause. “Kind of weird, but not terrible. Hey, you totally rejected me when I flirted with you!”

“Because I was already flirting with you!” Yvette gestures between them.

“Oh, right.” Julia nods.

“And Yasmin is apparently the victim of another Regene who wiped her brain because she could see the numbers before they came up when gambling.” Yvette explains, digging for something, anything that could upset her. This is it. After this, she’s out. Julia’s seen the worst parts of her and somehow made them seem good.

“Are they dangerous?” Julia probes, managing to completely ignore the rest of that sentence.

“To me? Absolutely. It was actually the Farm that grows Regenes that kidnapped me for seven years.” There’s a spark of electricity Julia fights to control, but it is anger at the Farm, not her.

“You were in danger and I didn’t even know.” Julia frowns, letting go of her hand to wrap the other arm around her waist like she could somehow shield her from the world. Yvette feels a small flare of anger, one she’s familiar with. She could damn well protect herself. Even back then, before she realized how strong her powers could be…

Maybe she just had to accept that Julia wanted to protect her, not because she was weak, but because Julia wanted to keep her safe.

“We were always in danger.”

“You were a different kind of danger.” Julia winces. “In, in a different kind of danger.”

“What could you have done? You’re part of the government and I’m government property.”

Julia’s eyes go hard in the same way tìa Elena’s did when she saw how little Yvette was eating or that Julia’s room was still a mess.

“I could have gotten you into the Rangers, put you into the witness protection program, watched your back, and I could have told you you’re no one’s property.” She practically spits the last word like a curse.

“You couldn’t, you were the Marshal, not the president.” It’s a lofty dream, but a nice one. How would it feel to know that the team knew her and wanted to protect her instead of turn her in?

“I still have a lot of sway.” Julia’s lip curls in distaste. “You’re friends with Chēn now and if you explain the situation, he’d do the exact same thing. The government needs us more than we need them.”

“As if you’d ever quit being a Ranger.”

“For you? I’ve already done it once.”

Yvette can’t imagine how Ortega felt when she died, but she can see the evidence even today. Her chosen demotion, the bags under her eyes, and the wrinkles on her forehead becoming deeper than her crow’s feet.

“Let me think about it.” Process of elimination. Herald idolizes her so much he would probably go for it as long as someone in charge, like Steel or Ortega, did. Argent wasn’t necessarily understanding, but she certainly didn’t attack without cause. So, it was all on Steel. Who already distrusts the government seeing as he thought Yvette was a spy seducing their Marshal at the time.

Ortega was more than likely right.

Plus, with Heartbreak’s lesser limitations, they could stop the real killers while working on fixing the system.

Real killers like…

“I have something I know you’ll hate.” The grin threatening to pull at Yvette’s lips is too much, so she gives in. Julia only gives an amused smile to her mischievous look.

Oh, how foolish she is.

“I met Hollow Ground in person, no mask.”

“You did what!?” Julia flips Yvette onto her back and pins her against the mattress before she can even elaborate. It's not a bad view, her indignant girlfriend hovering above her.

“What? Are you losing your hearing, old woman?” Yvette teases, stroking her fingers down her sides, but Julia is a woman on a mission.

“Tell me everything.” She demands, scowling down at her. “That is just like you, to meet my nemesis without even trying.”

“And she thinks I’m a useful recruit.”

“You have an in with her?” Julia gasps, closing her eyes and slumping down against her. “This is too good, I’m dreaming! I’ll wake up and you’ll be covered in layers and avoiding questions again.”

“I’m insulted that Hollow Ground is somehow more important than me telling you all my deepest, darkest secrets.” She tries to frown, but gives up and brushes her fingers through Julia’s hair instead.

“Seriously? Your ‘darkest’ secrets are so light, they’re practically white passing.” Julia huffs, tilting her head up to glare at her. “You have to tell Chēn. Tell everyone that doubted me. I have a couple of motherfuckers to prove wrong.”

“About that,” Yvette pauses while brushing her hair before deciding, screw it, she’s said far worse than this. “I think Hollow Ground was a genetic donor to the Farm. We look almost identical, except their face is full of piercings. Oh, and they’re a telepath, too. They run that one club, with all the flashing lights? I think they’re being petty because of you.”

“This is more information about Hollow Ground in one morning than I’ve collected in years.”

“Their closest henchmen are Jake and Nocturne. I went inside Jake’s head, there’s a thread in the same color as the thread Hollow Ground uses to weave their mental net. It's hard to explain.” Julia gave a broken groan from her lap. “Nocturne doesn’t have any real mental shields, but her powers are like a flash bang from what I can tell.”

“Stop, I’ve never felt more useless in my life." She mutters, words muffled by Yvette's chest. "Is that all?”

“Is that all? Like I didn’t just give you a treasure trove of information?”

“I hate you. You’ve ruined my life.”

“I love you, too.”

Julia’s breath hitches and Yvette briefly worries she’s going to start crying again. Or, worse, she’s changed her mind. Maybe it was all a joke–

“I love you. I love you so much, Yvette, I’ve been waiting for you so long.” Julia mumbles, pressing open mouthed kisses up her neck.

“I’ve loved you and I thought of you everyday.” Yvette smiles, guiding Julia’s head up to kiss her on the nose. “You just don’t know it yet.”

“You’ll show me?”

“I’ll show you everything. I’ll tell you everyday, if you want me to.”

“I’ll take whatever you give me,” Julia promises, pulling her into a proper kiss.

"There's no way you're not mad at me." Her words are muffled by Julia's lips, who only pulls away to respond.

"Little bit, yeah." Julia admits, smiling sadly at her. "I just thought support was more important right now. We'll get into it later."

And, yes, there is a later to be had.


End file.
